Rex Stout - The Doorbell Rang (The Rex Stout Library)

Silence. Finally: "You know who killed my son?"

"Not his name. I don't know anything. I only know what Mr Wolfe has been told. That's all I can say on the phone. If I may make a suggestion, we think Miss Marian Hinckley should know about this too. Perhaps you could phone her and ask her to come, and I can tell both of you. Could you?"

"I could, yes. Are you a newspaper reporter? Is this a trick?"

"No. If I were this would be pretty dumb, you'd only have me bounced. I'm Archie Goodwin."

"But I don't…" Long pause. "Very well. The hallman will ask you for identification."

I told her of course, and hung up before she could change her mind.

When leaving the house I had decided that I would completely iguore the tail question, but I couldn't help it if my eyes, while scouting the street for an empty taxi, took notice of standing vehicles. However, when I was in and rolling, up Madison Avenue and then Park, I kept facing front. To hell with the rear.

It was a regulation Park Avenue hive in the Eighties-marquee, doorman hopping out when the taxi stopped, rubber runner saving the rug in the lobby-but it was Grade A, because the doorman did not double as hallman. When I showed the hallman, who was expecting me, my private investigator license he gave it a good look, handed it back, and told me 10B, and I went to the elevator. On the tenth floor I was admitted by a uniformed female who took my hat and coat, put them in a closet, and conducted me through an arch into a room even bigger than Lily Rowan's, where twenty couples can dance. I have a test for people with rooms that big-not the rugs or the furniture or the drapes, but the pictures on the walls. If I can tell what they are, okay. If all I can do is guess, look out; these people will bear watching. That room passed the test fine. I was looking at a canvas showing three girls sitting on the grass under a tree when footsteps came and I turned. She approached. She didn't offer a hand, but she said in a low, soft voice, "Mr Goodwin? I'm Ivana Althaus," and moved to a chair.

Even without the picture test I would have passed her-her small slender figure with its honest angles, her hair with its honest gray, her eyes with their honest doubt. As I turned a chair to sit facing her I decided to be as honest as possible. She was saying that Miss Hinckley would come soon, but she would prefer not to wait. She had understood me to say on the phone that her son had been killed by an agent of the FBI. Was that correct?

Her eyes were straight at me, and I met them. "Not strictly," I told her. "I said that someone told Mr Wolfe that. I should explain about Mr Wolfe. He is-uh-eccentric, and he has certain strong feelings about the New York Police Department. He resents their attitude toward him and his work, and he thinks they interfere too much. He reads the newspapers, and especially news about murders, and a couple of weeks ago he got the idea that the police and the District Attorney were letting go on the murder of your son, and when he learned that your son had been collecting material for an article about the FBI he suspected that the letting go might be deliberate. If so, it might be a chance to give the police a black eye, and nothing would please him better."

Her eyes were staying straight at me, hardly a blink. "So," I said, "we had no case on our hands, and he started some inquiries. One thing we learned, a fact that hasn't been published, was that nothing about the FBI, no notes or documents, was found by the police in your son's apartment. Perhaps you knew that."

She nodded. "Yes."

"I supposed you did, so I mentioned it. We have learned some other facts which I have been instructed not to mention. You'll understand that. Mr Wolfe wants to save them until he has enough to act on. But yesterday afternoon a man told him that he knows that an FBI agent killed your son, and he backed it up with some information. I won't give you his name, or the information, but he's a reliable man and the informalion is solid, though it isn't enough to prove it. So Mr Wolfe wants all he can get from people who were close to your son-for instance, people to whom he may have told things he had learned about the FBI. Of course you are one of them, and so is Miss Hinckley. And Mr Yarmack. I was told to make it clear to you that Mr Wolfe is not looking for a client or a fee. He is doing this on his own and doesn't want or expect anyone to pay him."

Her eyes were still on me, but her mind wasn't. She was considering something. "I see no reason…" she said, and stopped.

I waited a little, then said, "Yes, Mrs Althaus?"

"I see no reason why I shouldn't tell you. I have suspected it was the FBI, ever since Mr Yarmack told me that nothing about them was found in the apartment. So has Mr Yarmack, and so has Miss Hinckley. I don't think I am a vindictive woman, Mr Goodwin, but he was my-" Her voice was going to quiver, and she stopped. In a moment she went on. "He was my son. I am still trying to realize that he-he's gone. Did you know him? Did you ever meet him?"

"No."

"You're a detective."

"Yes."

"You're expecting me to help you find-to fix the blame for my son's death. Very well, I want to. But I don't think I can. He rarely spoke to me about his work. I don't remember that he ever mentioned the FBI. Miss Hinckley has asked me that, and Mr Yarmack. I'm sorry I can't tell you anything about it, I'm truly sorry, because if they killed him I hope they will be punished. It says in Leviticus 'Thou shalt not avenge', but Aristotle wrote that revenge is just. You see, I have been thinking about it. I believe-"

She turned to face the arch. A door had closed, and there were voices, and then a girl appeared. As she approached I got up, but Mrs Althaus kept her chair. The pictures in the Gazette file understated it. Marian Hinckley was a dish. She was an in-between, neither blonde nor brunette, brown hair and blue eyes, and she moved straight and smooth. If she wore a hat she had ditched it in the foyer. She came and gave Mrs Althaus a cheek kiss, then turned to look at me as Mrs Althaus pronounced my name. As the blue eyes took me in I instructed mine to ignore any aspect of the situation that was irrelevant to the job. When Mrs Althaus invited her to sit I moved a chair up. As she sat she spoke to Mrs Althaus. "If I understood you on the phone-did you say Nero Wolfe knows it was the FBI? Was that it?"

"I'm afraid I didn't get it straight," Mrs Althaus said. "Will you tell her, Mr Goodwin?"

I described it, the three points: why Wolfe was interested, what had made him suspicious, and how his suspicion had been supported by what a man told him yesterday. I explained that he didn't know it was the FBI, and he certainly couldn't prove it, but he intended to try to and that was why I was there.

Miss Hinckley was frowning at me. "But I don't see… Has he told the police what the man told him?"

"I'm sorry," I said, "I guess I didn't make it plain enough. He thinks the police know it was the FBI, or suspect it. For instance, one thing he wants to ask you people: Are the police keeping after you? Coming back, again and again, asking the same questions over and over? Mrs Althaus?"

"No."

"Miss Hinckley?"

"No. But we've told them everything we know."

"That doesn't matter. In a murder investigation, if they haven't got a line they like, they never let up on anybody, and it looks as if they have let up on everybody. That's one thing we need to know. Mrs Althaus just told me that you and Mr Yarmack both think that the FBI killed him. Is that correct?"